There still are some bits to finish up from last week’s UK broadcast of Miss Austen Regrets. The Telegraph’s Stephen Pile said:

At the start of the 21st century we are all madly interested in What Jane Austen Was Really Like, but the reports are confusing. In the cinema Becoming Jane showed us an intelligent woman who was nonetheless feminine and romantic, but television is not so easily fooled and has come up with something far more complex.

In Miss Austen Regrets (BBC1, Sun) she had an utterly different set of boyfriends from the film (Rev Bridges, Bigg-Wither and even, controversially, Dr Haden, but no sign of the racy Lefroy). What emerged was Jane Our Contemporary.

The Times’ Roland White seems less than pleased.

Yet the Jane Austen portrayed so brilliantly here by Olivia Williams was hardly a role model for today’s spiky, independent career girls. For all her bravado on the subject, she was obsessed by the one thing that eluded her - Mr Right. It was pretty much all she talked about: partly advising her niece and partly reflecting on her own lack of success.

We feel as though we should paraphrase Edward Austen from the film–”If that’s what you think it is about, perhaps you should watch it again.”

Whereas the Guardian’s Andrew Anthony is in raptures.

Surely not even the most devoted member of the Jane Austen Society would have thought that what British television needed just now was another costume drama of early 19th-century social manners featuring Hugh Bonneville. And yet Miss Austen Regrets was a sublime delight. Olivia Williams as Austen grabbed our sympathy with throwaway epigrams, and such was the spirit of the piece, that every visual cliche seemed almost fresh.

Alert Janeite Carmen sent us a link to a fan-made trailer for Miss Austen Regrets (complete with Spanish subtitles! Lovely!) since neither PBS nor Auntie Beeb bothered to make one:

As the title says: WHYY (the PBS station in the Philadelphia area) is showing a Mother’s Day marathon of P&P95. From the press release with which several unrelated posts on this blog were spammed (News flash: we have an e-mail address):

WHYY TO AIR MOTHER’S DAY MARATHON OF
MASTERPIECE “The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice”
This mother’s day WHYY brings families a marathon showing of “The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice.”

How many ways can a young woman find true love amid the dinner parties, balls, carriage rides, picnics and other picturesque opportunities to meet the opposite sex in turn-of-the-19th-century England? There are six transcendently satisfying scenarios, as told in a half-dozen enchanting novels by Jane Austen — one of the most beloved writers in all of literature.

“The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice,” beginning Sunday, May 11, 2008, at 3 p.m. and running all day thru to 11 p.m. on WHYY-TV12, features the Emmy Award-winning “Pride and Prejudice” that made Colin Firth a leading man and a special half-hour program, Celebrating The Complete Jane Austen.

In “Pride and Prejudice,” Colin Firth (Bridget Jones’ Diary) is Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle (The Coast of Utopia) is Elizabeth Bennet in the definitive adaptation of the most-loved of all Austen novels. With five daughters, no sons and an entailed estate, the elder Bennets are in dire straits as they try to arrange advantageous marriages. Wedding bells ring three times, but the path to true love is tortuous indeed. Adapted by Andrew Davies. Directed by Simon Langton.

Celebrating The Complete Jane Austen is hosted by NBC correspondent and “Weekend Today” co-anchor Lisa Daniels, an avid Austen fan. “As a journalist and NBC network correspondent, I’ve been trained to maintain a neutral attitude toward my subject. When it comes to Jane Austen, that’s impossible for me to do!” confesses Daniels.

Daniels tackles the questions the most ardent Janeite would ask: Two hundred years after her death, why do Jane Austen’s novels continue to relate to modern readers? What’s in these stories for the “Sex and the City” crowd (one answer: clothes!)? And what were the challenges in bringing these novels to television?

From the Regency era to today, there are more social similarities than meet the eye. “How could Jane Austen’s 18th-century mind create characters that we read again and again now? I think it’s because her heroines are very modern. They are women who are trying to find themselves, trying to do the right things by who they are, in their way.

So it’s just P&P95, looks like…that’s not “The Complete Jane Austen” by any stretch. And wasn’t Lisa Daniels the reporter who put together a video report raving about Jane Austen’s wonderful dialogue, illustrated with movie clips that contained no dialogue that Jane Austen actually wrote? Oh, better and better!

According to Ellen Gray at the Daily News, there is a possibility that it will pre-empt the second part of Cranford here in Philly. Take it from us: much as we love Jane Austen and P&P, BIG MISTAKE. The proprietor of AUSTENBLOG is telling you this is a BIG MISTAKE. Just about every woman in America already owns P&P on DVD. Show us something new and wonderful.

If anyone wonders we are often cranky, the stupid makes our brain hurt. You would be cranky if your brain hurt, too.

Alert Janeite Julie T. spotted a reference on last week’s episode of Ugly Betty:

Last night on “Ugly Betty,” Betty and her boyfriend, Henry, were planning to celebrate her birthday dinner in the “most romantic restaurant in New York CIty.” It’s name? The Pemberly Inn.

Yep. That was the spelling. Wonder if it had a gift shop? That sold furs and sexy lingerie?

Those of you in the U.S. can watch the full episode online. “Would you like a doggy bag for your cheese?”

Most of the British press, now that the movie is past, seemed to like it well enough. Perhaps if they had said so before it aired, it wouldn’t have lost in the ratings to Midsomer Murders. Or maybe not.

Here’s an article we missed on Sunday, from the Times.

What she calls the “Janeites” – the legions of (mainly female) fans obsessed with Austen and all her works – are already complaining online that Olivia Williams, the actress who plays Austen, is too tall

Where is all this complaining going on? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

The Telegraph has a thoughtful look at the film.

Above all, she reflected on her own romantic history, as Fanny’s questions (put, it seemed, on our behalf) constantly raised the issue of why she’d never married.
advertisement

To its credit, the programme didn’t come with a simple answer to that – or a simple emotional response. Instead, Austen pondered her single state with a mixture of bullishness, puzzlement, satisfaction and sadness. In a touching scene towards the end, one of her old suitors, the Rev Bridges (Hugh Bonneville at his most gently benevolent) asked her if she was at all sorry that she hadn’t married him. “What would be the point?” said Austen.

Sam Wollaston at the Guardian liked it despite his allergy to bonnets. (One longs to quote Edward Knight in the film–”If that’s what you think Aunt Jane’s books are about, perhaps you should read them again.”)

OK, so I’m not a Jane Austen freak, I’ll admit. I have subject-matter issues, plus an irrational hatred of bonnets, carriages, marriages, gravel, ribbons, mazes, and all that. But this dramatisation, by Gwyneth Hughes, of the second half of Austen’s life really was beautifully observed and thrilling to look at, with performances that left me weak with admiration (sorry, I’m getting carried away). The real star was Olivia Williams in the lead, who lifted this from standard Sunday-night BBC1 costume drama to something special. Her complex Austen was witty and brilliant, as you’d expect, but also moody and a bit mean, sometimes bordering on bitter. Suddenly it was clear: of course, that’s exactly what Jane Austen was like. A classy film.

The Times (again) has another reviewer who professes to hate Austen, but praises the film.

The central performance from Williams was a knockout, complimented by harsh unglamorous close-ups of a harried face, pale and careworn, and sad, soulful eyes. But best of all, however, were the silences. Whereas the wearisome Austen brand mistakenly equates prolixity with charm, here the words were cut down to a minimum. Gorgeous scenes, composites of close-ups, of Austen alone, staring, reflecting and aching, all underscored by the pining piano of the composer Jennie Muskett, somehow described Austen’s crushing loss and confusion without a line of dialogue. The closing topper, where Austen revealed that she was pressurised into remaining unmarried by her sister, and was thus a novelist by default, made complete sense.

What? Did anyone else get that from it?

And for all you soundtrack fanatics out there, Music from the Movies reviews the soundtrack, which (as we posted previously) is available for download on iTunes and will be out on CD next week.

We are pretty sure that Miss Austen Regrets got fairly good reviews after its broadcast here in the U.S., if not absolutely enthusiastic embrace, perhaps. We liked its intelligence and wit, the presentation of Jane Austen as a businesswoman and not so much of a romantic, and Olivia Williams’ magnificent performance that captured Jane Austen’s intelligence and wit and sense of fun as well as a clear-minded view of her life. It is clearly the screenwriter’s interpretation of events, not all of which we agreed with, but overall we were pleased with it. However, the theme of the UK press coverage in anticipation of the Sunday broadcast is the same old “The tar-hearted dried-up spinsters of the Jane Austen Society won’t approve! Tsk Tsk!” We really detest the press sometimes.

ETA: We nearly forgot! Alert Janeite Kate wrote to tell us that the soundtrack for Miss Austen Regrets is available to download on iTunes, and will be available to purchase in shops on May 12.

The Daily Mail (not exactly a bastion of thoughtful journalism, we admit) leads the tsking.

An incorrigible flirt with a crush on a man half her age, a woman who scandalously reneges on the acceptance of a marriage proposal, and a reveller familiar with hangovers because of her penchant for wine.

The above depiction of Jane Austen has already sent shudders down the corsets of her fans worldwide, for this little-known side to the early 19th-century author is the subject of a new BBC costume drama, Miss Austen Regrets.

*rolls eyes*

To make matters worse, when Jane died, aged 41, her sister Cassandra burned many of her letters - probably to spare the feelings of relatives and acquaintances who were the target of Jane’s barbs.

Actually, it’s more likely because they were letters to Cassandra and nobody else’s business. Slight difference. She didn’t burn the one with the dead baby joke, did she? Nope.

“People who think of Jane Austen as a little country mouse who was reserved around men will be shocked,” reveals Gwyneth Hughes, who wrote the script after painstakingly scouring Austen’s letters for revealing new insights into the author’s life.

Does anyone think that?

But Hughes is adamant. “Yes, she liked a drink,” she smiles. “When we showed the film in America, I got e-mails from the Jane Austen Society asking on what evidence we based the fact that Jane Austen had hangovers.

“So I found the quote from a letter which said: ‘I believe I drank too much wine last night; I know not else how to account for the shaking of my hand today.’”

Well, to extrapolate that to a hangover might be pushing it a bit. But no matter. (We are wondering about that “letter from the Jane Austen Society” as well.)

Another acquaintance, Reverend-Brook Bridges (played by Hugh Bonneville), is another potential husband.

“Jane mentions Bridges about half a dozen times in her letters - always affectionately and with a slight tinge of what might have been. There is a real sense of something between them, that he was a real contender, even if he never proposed,” says Hughes.

We’re not so sure about that, but it was okay in the movie.

But the third man in Austen’s life was half her age - and it was more like she had a girly, sexual crush on him. The object of her desire was the 20-year-old Dr Charles Haden (played by up-and-coming actor Jack Huston, who starred in Factory Girl).

Haden treats Jane’s sick brother and gets on very well with Jane until he is diverted by the charms of her niece Fanny.

“There was sex and passion on offer from Jane. She describes him as ’something between a man and an angel’. We have these letters with incredibly smitten feelings about this young chap. She was like a teenager,” explains Hughes.

We still are of the opinion that Jane was more likely joking with Cassandra about Fanny’s crush on Mr. Haden–imitating her way of talking, perhaps. While we think that Jane was quite capable of being pleased by an attractive young man who said lovely things about her “darling children,” we also think she would have tempered any attraction with common sense. Though he does come on kind of strong in the film!

Moving on to another article in the Yorkshire Post, which had this interesting tidbit that we think must have been a misapprehension by the reporter.

“Then I remembered that I had read Claire Tomalin’s biography of Jane Austen a few years previously,
and had come across this amazing thing.

“The woman we all think of as the archetypal spinster wasn’t someone who had had no offers of marriage. She’d had an offer from an extremely eligible man who was wealthy and whom she had known all her life. He was a family friend, his sisters were her best friends, and his name was Harris Bigg.

“Had she married him she would have been rich, but she said yes one evening in December 1802, then got up the next morning and said no. Giving back-word was a shameful and appalling thing, so what happened during the intervening night, when she went off to bed, sharing a room with her sister, Cassandra?”

Tomalin had discovered this relatively little-known Austen fact through an account left by Jane’s 10-year-old niece, who witnessed the effects of this scandal on the family.

What? While we think well enough of Claire Tomalin’s biography of Jane Austen (though we usually recommend others), she was hardly the first to “discover” l’affaire Bigg-Withers. It was mentioned in Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record, which was published in 1913. We’re not sure if that is the first mention, but it certainly predates Tomalin. It also is mentioned in the wonderful biography by Elizabeth Jenkins, in our opinion the most readable of all Jane Austen biographies.

But at least Gwyneth Hughes admits she made most of it up–though she backs it up with evidence from the letters. As we already said, we don’t always agree with her interpretation, but Olivia Williams’ intelligently wonderful performance puts the film over the top for us. And we love this part:

“All the men in the story are real and all are mentioned in the letters – some very fully and others not. I took each one and imagined who he was and what kind of relationship they might have had.” To Hughes, the least interesting was Tom Lefroy, with whom Austen shared a teenage flirtation, a puppy love previously examined in the rather slight and unsatisfying feature film Being Jane.

Hee hee heeeeeeeee!

Reuters also has an article that covers most of the same ground, and the Times chats with Greta Scacchi about her portrayal of Cassandra Austen, though oddly they run a photo of Olivia Williams with the article, and they really don’t talk much about Miss Austen Regrets. The journalist seems more interesting in putting a “gotcha” on Ms. Scacchi and getting her to say something unguarded.

So UK Janeites, do stop in and let us know what you think of the film once you’ve seen it!

Alert Janeite Sylvia sent us a video of Pride and Prejudice in alternate reality…

And if you prefer your Jane Austen a little more low-concept, Alert Baja Janeite sent us a video of a cartoon cat reading the first chapter of P&P. No catch, that’s exactly what it is.

Nibbles has a very relaxing voice, doesn’t he?

Granada will make ITV programmes available via iTunes download, including NA07 and Emma96 (Kate Beckinsale version). Granada owns MP07, too, so it’s quite possible that might show up as well.

As part of a deal which sees more than 260 hours of ITV shows uploaded to the downloaded site, fans will have the change to pay £1.89 per episode before downloading popular programmes such as Captain Scarlet, Cold Feet, Lewis and Jane Austen adaptations Northanger Abbey and Emma to their Mac, PC, video iPod, iPhone or widescreen TV fitted with Apple TV.

£1.89 per episode? That’s pretty much the only advantage we’ve ever noticed about making those films so bally short.

ETA: This site says the films will be available “later in the year.”

The Guardian is reporting that ITV is delaying the broadcast of Lost in Austen, along with some other new dramas, as a result of a change of management at the network.

It is thought that Fincham - who starts his ITV job on May 12 - wants to focus particularly on drama,

It’s unclear if that means “he wants more drama” (in which case, why delay broadcasting a drama such as Lost in Austen?) or “he wants to make sure it’s GOOD drama so snarky bloggers stop mocking us” (in which case, better luck next time, mate).

This article is probably not unexpected, with the impending broadcast of Miss Austen Regrets on UK television, but we found it a trifle strange nonetheless.

She flirts remorselessly. She wakes up with a hangover. She wisecracks with her women friends about the myriad failings of the pitiful male specimens she surveys. Sex and the City’s Samantha? Carrie? Miranda? No, Jane Austen, of course.

OHDEARJANENOTWITHTHESEXANDTHECITYCOMPARISONSAGAIN!!!!! Elvis wept, people! Something original, please!

“Your only way to get a man like Mr Darcy is to make him up,” says Olivia Williams’ Jane Austen to her niece Fanny (a sentiment echoed by my mother, who once sent me a card bearing the cheery greeting “Searching for Mr Right?” and then inside the helpful solution: “Look in fiction!”). This vehement assertion of no-nonsense realism is underlined by an obsession with money that has this Jane swinging slightly wildly between acerbic social commentator and Regency Heather Mills.

Oh, she has GOT to be kidding us. The “obsession” with money in the film was related to the fact that the Austens, as a family, had suffered several financial setbacks–setbacks, incidentally, that may have contributed to Jane Austen’s death (severe emotional distress exacerbates the symptoms of Addison’s disease). They didn’t even put them all in the film–we can’t remember the expected legacy from Uncle Leigh Perrot not coming through, but that happened around the same time that Henry’s bank failed, if memory serves. Jane was at the time in her career when she was just starting to make some decent money, and get attention in the right places–reviews by Walter Scott, the patronage of the Prince Regent–and then she fell ill, and couldn’t take advantage of it. Are we the only ones who can follow a very logical plot? Sheesh!

Besides, Heather Mills, unlike Jane Austen, can actually go out and get a job. Not that she will, but just saying.

It is, however, somewhat undercut by the drama’s central thesis: that Jane Austen was a passionate romantic, one who withdrew her acceptance of a rich young Londoner’s proposal because she wasn’t in love with him, and who regretted, till her dying day, her decision not to marry the man she loved because he was too poor.

We think she has Miss Austen Regrets confused with Becoming Jane. Surely she didn’t think that Jane regretted Brook Bridges? (In the movie, meaning–it’s doubtful she spared the guy a thought in real life).

Frankly, this whole thing sounds like it was written by Bridget Jones after a bottle of Chardonnay, except that we know Bridget suffers from writers’ block. By the end we were wondering WTFerrars it had to do with Jane Austen.

Alert Janeite Laurel Ann sent us an article from the Birmingham Post about Andrew Davies. It has a bit about P&P, wet shirt, yada yada, nothing we haven’t seen before, except for this rather revealing bit:

In fact, Davies claims his reputation for raciness arose due to a misunderstanding about a comment he made concerning Pride and Prejudice.

“I said I wanted to do a really sexy version of it because people think Jane Austen is all about social comedy and people making polite remarks in drawing rooms, whereas she is all about sex and money. Those are the deep down motivations,” says Davies. “One of the things I do try to do is bring out the sexual subtext that lurks in all of these great classics, because in the 19th century the convention was unless it was pornography, you couldn’t write directly about sex.

“It is all subtle and implied, which probably makes for better writing.”

You think?

Alert Janeite Amo spotted a photo of Gemma Arterton in costume as Elizabeth Bennet in Lost in Austen. They’re still saying it will be broadcast in spring…hmm.

At last! A very good article in the Independent about Miss Austen Regrets gives a broadcast date for the UK: April 27. We’re sure the Region 2 DVD will quickly follow for all the Europeans waiting on it.

In a break between scenes on set at Hall Barn, an appropriately stately manor house near Beaconsfield, the 39-year-old actress confides that she’s fearful of the consequences if Austen’s legions of passionate fans – the “Janeites” – take against her portrayal of their heroine.

“It’s a terrifying prospect,” Williams shudders. “These diehard Janeites will pelt me with rock cakes if I make a mistake. Already, they’re complaining online – ‘She’s too tall, she doesn’t look right!’”

For once, that’s not us. But this is the sort of thing that gets us tossing cakes, er, swinging the Cluebat:

Jane reflects wistfully on the fact that this episode put her off the very idea of marriage. Consequently, she never settled down with her soulmate, the Reverend Brook Bridges (Hugh Bonneville)

Soulmate? Let’s not get carried away here.

In a feat of serendipitous timing, we also got word yesterday of a lovely essay on JASNA’s website about Brook Edward Bridges and his relationship (such as it was) with Jane Austen. The essay was written by Elizabeth Philosophos Cooper, the regional coordinator of JASNA’s Wisconsin region.

A few years later Austen wrote to Cassandra from Godmersham: “Lady Bridges looked very well, & would have been very agreeable, I am sure, had there been time enough for her to talk to me . . . . Her son Edward was also looking very well, & with manners as un-altered as hers” (30 June 1808). A letter written later that year to Cassandra, who was visiting Godmersham, includes an important emphasis: “I wish you may be able to accept Lady Bridges’s invitation, though I could not her son Edward’s; she is a nice Woman, & honours me by her remembrance” (7 October 1808). Citing this letter, Deirdre Le Faye, in Jane Austen: A Family Record, says, “it seems possible that Edward Bridges proposed or attempted to propose to [Austen during her visit in 1808], . . . a proposal which she had no difficulty in politely rejecting.”

What was that about soulmates again? Back to the Independent article…

Even if these events saddened Austen as a woman, they enriched her as a writer. Her life bled into her work. In Persuasion, for instance, she writes wryly that “a woman of seven and twenty can never hope to feel or inspire affection again”.

Psst. Not Persuasion. Try Sense and Sensibility. And since it’s coming out of Marianne Dashwood’s mouth, it’s certainly not meant to be taken as Jane Austen’s opinion.

Austen’s bittersweet experiences endowed her novels with a rare astringency. “One’s impressions from screen adaptations of Austen is that it’s all lovely girls running down hills in flowery dresses,” Williams says. “But Austen could be a real bitch as well. She could nail the weaknesses in someone’s appearance or accent. She could deconstruct people accurately and uncharitably, and would rail against their faults and foibles. That’s why I – and the vigilante Janeites – love her.”

Well, one of the reasons, but that’s nicely said!

Williams, who studied English at Cambridge University, says: “I’m in awe of Austen. She is the reason I’ve never written anything. I remember trying to write like her once and coming up with these clearly risible attempts to plot or describe things as brilliantly as she does.”

Oh, honey. That’s no reason to not write. Don’t try to write like Jane Austen. Trust your own voice, and work at it. Remember those lovely encouraging letters from Aunt Jane when asked to read her nieces’ and nephews’ writing. She would never tell you to not at least try.

The actress, who says she never goes anywhere without Austen’s letters

A constant bone of contention amongst Janeites seems to be, “Is Mr. Darcy really proud or just a bit shy and awkward?”* Alert Janeite Allison sent us a YouTube video that answers the question for once and all: he wasn’t shy, he wasn’t proud…he was OBSESSED!

This video was made as an example/test by a teacher who is giving a class assignment in which students are to recut a movie trailer. We think he did a fine job, and got a giggle out of it. Though we think it needs vampyres. And ninjas.

*The book isn’t called Diffidence and Prejudice. Just saying.

Several Alert Janeites sent us the news that Andrew Davies, “adapter” of several Jane Austen novels for the small screen, was the victim of Dog Rage.

Mr Davies told how he had tried to defend his timid rescue dog Daisy – an adult mongrel who looks like an alsatian puppy – from the snarling bull terriers.

“I drove one of them off,” he said. “I shouted, ‘Go on! Get out of it!’ and sort of aimed a kick at it, which was never really meant to connect, and didn’t.

“The dog got the message and went off. But his owner shouted, ‘Don’t you ******* touch my dog!’ and ran up and headbutted me and punched me in the eye.

“It knocked me clean off my feet. He was a big guy and I am quite little.”

There is no truth to the rumor that said thug shouted “JUSTICE FOR JANE AUSTEN!” as he took down Mr. Davies. No truth at all, because we’re starting the rumor right here.

Since Mr. Davies seems to be recovering well, we wish to sincerely commend him on his defense of his doggie! She looks like a sweetie. Thanks to Alert Janeites Lisa, Patty, Laurel Ann, and Maria L.

…she delivers for PBS.

Masterpiece Whatchamacallit reports that its ratings for the Jane Austen season are up FIFTY PERCENT over last season.

We repeat: FIFTY PERCENT! A fifty percent gain in ratings! We complain about the quality of these productions, Gentle Readers, but we all watched them, didn’t we? Talk about hoist by our own petard. We hope that the folks involved don’t forget that better quality productions would have received just as high ratings, and probably even higher. Just saying.

In other Jane Austen TV movie news, the release date of the Region 2 DVDs of Lost in Austen has been moved back to October 6, so it seems likely that the series won’t be aired in the spring after all. Got another dog on your hands, ITV? Don’t say we didn’t tell you so.

Well! Just when one thinks she can take a breath and get back to reading old biographies of Jane Austen, here comes another film. Alert Janeite Cinthia (one of the managers of JACastellano, the Spanish-language Jane Austen discussion list) sent us an article from the Mexican newspaper Reforma that states Diana Garcia has been cast as Mary (Marianne) and Daniella Alonso as Nora (Elinor) for the upcoming film Sense and Sensibilidad. Cinthia is working on translating the entire article for us. The article also states filming begins in August.

For those unfamiliar with this project, it is a modern-set English language version of Sense and Sensibility, set in the Latino community of Los Angeles.

ETA: Making a few tweaks since we posted this in a hurry on our lunch break.

ETA 2 and bumped: to add the translation of the article, courtesy of Cinthia, after the break. (more…)

Now that they’re done with all the new Austen adaptations, reimaginings will come to the forefront. We already had some news today about Sense and Sensibilidad; it looks like Lost in Austen will be out next month; and now Alert Janeite Elizabeth sent us news about Emme–a hip-hop musical version of Emma. We did check for an April 1 posting date, but it looks like this is no hamster curry, Gentle Readers.

Screen Gems is planning a hip-hop musical reimagining of Jane Austen’s classic novel “Emma” for the bigscreen.

Chris Bender and J.C. Spink will produce via their Benderspink banner.

Contemporary-set tale, which takes place at an inner-city high school, revolves around a stepbrother and stepsister. Film will include at least 15 song and dance numbers. Tyger Williams penned the screenplay.

Screen Gems topper Clint Culpepper said he came up with the idea for “Emma,” which will likely be redubbed “Emme,” after watching the musicvideo “Lipgloss” by Lil Mama.

Austen’s novel also inspired the Alicia Silverstone starrer “Clueless,” which was set in a suburban Southern California high school.

“Now it’s urban,” Culpepper said. “This is the way it should be reimagined in the new millennium.”

They definitely get extra points for imagination. And hopefully some kickass dancing.

The Complete Jane Austen is now behind us with the broadcast of the second part of Sense and Sensibility. We’ve really run out of things to say, but we’re sure our Gentle Readers will make up for it.

One Minute Book Reviews disputes the perception that Jane Austen’s novels take a rose-colored view of romance. It’s a very short piece so we won’t copy over anything, but check it out and see what you think. Thanks to Alert Janeite Jeannette for the link.

Alert Janeite Laurel Ann sent us a link to Laurie Viera Rigler’s last post in her series on Jane Austen’s novels for About.com’s Classic Literature blog.

I admire that anyone even attempts to brave the minefield of adapting my favorite author. Although it is a truth universally acknowledged that the book is always better than the movie, a good movie often inspires those who haven’t read the book to do so. And the more Austen readers there are out there, the closer we Janeites come to world domination.

Just kidding. But would that be such a bad thing?

These days our own idea is to keep Jane inside a compound surrounded by an electrified fence patrolled by very angry and hungry Dobermans. World domination has its attractions, but it unfortunately involves mingling with the rest of the world. These are the same people who watch reality television and made Paris Hilton a celebrity. This tar-hearted spinster would prefer to keep Jane Austen to herself, but we are just cranky.

And lastly, Andrew Davies answers your questions about adapting Jane Austen’s novels. Thanks to Alert Janeite I. Miller for the link.

Alert Janeite Aad, who keeps us up to date on releases of Jane Austen DVDs in the Netherlands, let us know that a Just Entertainment will release a Jane Austen Collection, including Persuasion 2007, Northanger Abbey 1986, Pride and Prejudice 1980, and Sense and Sensibility 1971, on April 24. This set is, of course, Region 2 and we believe contains Dutch subtitles.

Aad also let let us know that Sony Benelux will release the Dutch edition of The Jane Austen Book Club on April 24. Mark your calendars in the Netherlands!